Lalaei
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Music & concept: Zwerm. Singer: Sarah Akbari. Storytelling: Marie Phillips. Scenography: Stef Depover. Dramaturgy: WALPURGIS & Farnoosh Farnia. Production: Zwerm and WALPURGIS. Coproduction: deSingel and Klara Festival. Podcast: Teletext. |
Lalaei, Persian for lullaby, is a performance by the Iranian singer Sarah Akbari, the British storyteller Marie Phillips and Zwerm.
In 2018 Zwerm played two concerts in Tehran at the invitation of the Tehran Contemporary Music Festival. During that visit we met Sarah, who sang a number of songs during an informal farewell party. A beautiful evening; a spontaneous idea: could we make new arrangements of traditional Iranian songs together?
Back in our little corner of North-West Europe, we kept coming back to the idea - but how? Which songs, from which region, in which language? Above all, how could we relate to the rich tradition of orally transmitted stories that is still alive in parts of Iran?
Through the Mezrab Cultural Centre in Amsterdam we came into contact with writer and storyteller Marie Phillips. Like so many children she got to know Persia through the most famous fairy tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Aladdin and the miraculous lamp; Ali Baba and the forty thieves. The Middle East as one big exotic garden. Scimitars, turbans and flying carpets. Growing up in the England of the eighties, other images were added over time. In 1980, for example, a large hostage and liberation campaign took place in the Iranian embassy in London. 1980 was also the year in which Iraq invaded Iran. The former was initially seen in the West as an ally until, ten years later, that story had to be changed as well.
Who controls the proliferation of stories? Do they teach us something new or do they put us to sleep? From fairy tale to news, from propaganda to personal experience. Lalaei is the story of a story, told to music.
In 2018 Zwerm played two concerts in Tehran at the invitation of the Tehran Contemporary Music Festival. During that visit we met Sarah, who sang a number of songs during an informal farewell party. A beautiful evening; a spontaneous idea: could we make new arrangements of traditional Iranian songs together?
Back in our little corner of North-West Europe, we kept coming back to the idea - but how? Which songs, from which region, in which language? Above all, how could we relate to the rich tradition of orally transmitted stories that is still alive in parts of Iran?
Through the Mezrab Cultural Centre in Amsterdam we came into contact with writer and storyteller Marie Phillips. Like so many children she got to know Persia through the most famous fairy tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Aladdin and the miraculous lamp; Ali Baba and the forty thieves. The Middle East as one big exotic garden. Scimitars, turbans and flying carpets. Growing up in the England of the eighties, other images were added over time. In 1980, for example, a large hostage and liberation campaign took place in the Iranian embassy in London. 1980 was also the year in which Iraq invaded Iran. The former was initially seen in the West as an ally until, ten years later, that story had to be changed as well.
Who controls the proliferation of stories? Do they teach us something new or do they put us to sleep? From fairy tale to news, from propaganda to personal experience. Lalaei is the story of a story, told to music.
